Reclaimed (A Highland Historical Trilogy) (The MacKay Banshees 1-3) Read Free

anyth—
    Katriona gasped. Her hands rested on his chest.
    Smooth, warm flesh flexed under her fingertips. The quick pace of his heart thumped a strong rhythm beneath her palm and his ribs expanded with deep breaths. Dumbfounded, Katriona moved her hands across the expanse of his torso. As with any inanimate object, she reached right through the tartan slung over his shoulder, but once her hand hit skin, it was as tangible as when she’d been alive.
    And smooth, very smooth.
    “What sorcery is this?” she breathed. “How can I feel you?”
    Large, calloused hands covered hers, their warmth spreading up the perpetually cold miasma of her arms. The light she cast illuminated golden striations in the darkness of his umber eyes. The sorrow she read in them interrupted her rage and held her captive for a soft moment.
    “Again, I doona know, lass.” One of his hands released hers. The back of his fingers found the curve of her cheek. “I never thought I’d see yer face again,” he murmured.
    At his touch, a dangerous heat threatened her frigid wrath, revealing the weak spots in the wall of ice she’d built around her humanity. If he found one crack, the entire thing could shatter completely. This wasn’t going at all how she’d planned. He was supposed to be dead . Or at least writhing on the ground in anguish.
    Panic surged and she smothered it with anger, slapping his hand away and jolting him with magic.
    He winced as though she’d shocked him, but still didn’t cry out.
    “You’re the worst one of the lot, Laird, ” she sneered. “At least your father and brother didn’t hide their evil behind honeyed words and false compassion.” Her cheek burned where his fingers had touched, almost as though he’d branded her.
    It fed her rage.
    She didn’t want to notice how solid his flesh had been beneath her fingertips. Or for his touch to remind her that it had been nigh on a year since she’d had human contact of any kind. The fact that the vibrant timbre of his voice slid awareness to places she’d ignored when she was alive irritated her to no end.
    She was the powerful one now, no longer helpless against the whims of stronger men. How dare he affect her like this?
    “I will return,” she vowed. “And when I do, I’ll bring your fate with me.”

    A pottery bowl sailed through Katriona and shattered inside of the blackened, hollowed- out shell that used to be their fireplace.
    “Already dead ?” her mother screeched. “ How ?”
    Katriona floated over piles of scorched stone and rubble, evading the small fire pit in the open room. A light, misting rain dampened inside the structure where the ceiling had burned away and exposed them all to the Highland sky. “He said his father and brother were killed by the MacLauchlan Berserkers only recently.” She didn’t examine why she left out the part where Rory had ordered his twin’s death.
    “ Lies !” Spittle collected at the corners of Elspeth MacKay’s scarred and disfigured lips. “Deceit falls from the mouths of Angus’s kin like mud from a Firbolg.”
    “But Mother, it’s true.” Kamdyn hovered over the tiny, uncomfortable cot in the only corner of the ruined structure that maintained a roof. Her sweet face, rounded with the softness of youth, mirrored the anxiety they all felt. “Kylah and I both searched for Angus and his father. We only found their graves.”
    “How could you allow him time to spout his poison Katriona? Why didn’t you kill him right away?”
    “I tried ,” Katriona pulsed with frustration, her blue glow intensifying with her emotions. “He wouldn’t die. He just—stood there.”
    “You mean, he’s still alive ?” Kamden cried, her glow increasing, as well. “What if he comes after us?”
    “There’s nothing more any of them can do to us now,” Kylah murmured from her corner.
    They all three turned to look at her in surprise. Her slim, delicate body leaned against the short remnant of what used to be the